Polk County to include Intelligent Design

The Ledger reports that the majority of Polk County, Florida, School Board members support teaching Intelligent Design in addition to evolution in public schools.

It’s unclear if they’re prepared to change the definition of science. Some people are concerned that a supernatural theory will not mesh with the study of the natural world.

Board member Kay Fields said last week she wants intelligent design, which is promoted by some Christian groups, taught in science classes in addition to evolution.

“If it ever comes to the board for a vote, I will vote against the teaching of evolution as part of the science curriculum,” Lofton said. “If (evolution) is taught, I would want to balance it with the fact that we may live in a universe created by a supreme being as well.”

The board’s majority opinion is at odds with many in Florida’s scientific community who strongly support the new, more rigorous science standards, and say intelligent design lacks scientific credibility.

Perhaps Florida’s scientific community has not realized the type of genius arguments they’re up against:

“My tendency would be to have both sides shared with students since neither side can be proven,” [School Board Member] Tim Harris said.

“It crosses the line with people who are Christians,” [School Board Member] Lofton said. “Evolution is offensive to a lot of people.”

Pastafarians are concerned that the Polk County School Board is endorsing Intelligent Design, but ignoring our theory, even though it is widely endorsed by the scientific community.

I will wager that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster can produce more academic endorsements for our theory than Intelligent Design proponents can for theirs.

My guess is that the Polk County School Board is just unaware of Pastafarianism. As a public service, I propose that we contact them, and let them know that there are other supernatural theories just as valid as Intelligent Design, primarily ours.

Please be respectful – remember we are not criticizing their beliefs, merely pointing out that there is another, just as legitimate, theory that should be included into the curriculum. Please leave a comment and tell us about your conversations with the School Board. Thank you!

216 Responses to “Polk County to include Intelligent Design”

@ALL:
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Paul Davies (Secular British astrophysicist): “There is, for me, powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all….It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe….The impression of design is overwhelming”.
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Davies, P. 1988. The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature’s Creative Ability To Order the Universe. New York: Simon and Schuster, p.203.
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Once again I cannot embrace Evolution. It is a TRAVESTY that so-called educated people embrace the fantasy of evolution as a science when it is not. It is a BASELESS cosmological revelation that uses a pseudo-science whose underpinnings are false premises.
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True randomness does not exist as a naturalistic phenomenon. Hence, random genetic drift and random action simply do not occur. In the language of science, mathematics, there can be no formula for random action because it would become ordered and not random.
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Naturalisitc infintity does not exist in this universe. Hence this universe is bounded and there are only limited outcomes – probabilistic outcomes. In mathematics, infinity is a surreal number NOT a real number.
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Evolutionary processes are not testable nor demonstratable withstanding scientific rigor. Evolutionist obfuscate the evolutionary science in noise that is too complex, too slow, too random to fully understand which is counter to science.
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There is no empirical strength to evolution. It is mired in hoax after hoax after hoax.
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I CANNOT BELIEVE PEOPLE ARE SO GULLIBLE TO BELIEVE IN THIS EVOLUTION NONSENSE AND THAT WE ARE TEACHING THIS CRAP TO OUR YOUTH. HAVE WE NO SHAME? I SUPPOSE NOT.

Our children, our future, need to be taught the freedom of thought and HOW to learn. Telling our children some specific and not training them for independent thought is indoctrination not education!

@Davehead:
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Carl Sagan is known to be the worse physicists of all times. He allows his worldview to influence his science. He jumps the gun. Read the article byMicheal Crichton “Aliens Caused Global Warming” http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html.
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Intelligent Design is as much a secular thing as it is a religious thing. The Christians take it farther than the secularist when they reconcile it with the Bible. Both acknowledge the evidence of design is overwhelming and compelling.
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I am not talking out of my arse. The problem is that too many people do not look at science through a non-bias lens. They come toit with a belief and try to fit the science to the belief. Evolution is such a belief.

Lets see…
Firstly, unless you want to challenge the current theory of radioactive decay, I believe there’s enough evidence to suggest that the Earth is several billion years old. Of course, compared to these numbers, an error margin of 40,000 years is hardly significant (of course, you wouldn’t use the carbon-14 methodology in this case. More probably Uranium-238 decay, but I’m not really sure). So given this, I choose to believe that the bible is wrong, at the very least in this aspect of the issue: the Earth was not so recently “created” as it is claimed in ID.

Secondly, unless you think that the fossil remains of ancient hominids were placed by God to confound the unbelievers, those creatures existed. What you could challenge, perhaps, is that they share a connection with the human race.
Well… I study engineering. And as every good engineer knows, when one measures anything, be that the variation of temperatures in an oven or the neutralization curve of an acid, it is impossible, even forgetting about the errors implicit in the measuring, to take the infinite measures necessary to plot a COMPLETE curve that shows the behaviour of a system. So you just make do with some points in your graph, taking into account the errors involved. You look at them really hard and you say “Hm… I think this looks like an exponential/linear equation/quadratic equation”. After this, you use your preferred adjusting or interpolating program and voilá. There you have the equation that solves, with reasonable error, your problem.

And wether you want to believe it or not, that IS science. It’s science at it’s most basic. Down to when I had to measure a table with a ruler fifty times the first day I went to physics laboratory.

And that is what the theory of evolution is about. You look at similarities between fossils and current humans and you plot a possible “course of evolution” throughout prehistory. As you learn more and find more fossils, you discard some lineages, as you would discard a temperature measure that was wrongly taken in the oven. And you improve your theory.

So, to put it simply, ID contradicts several scientific findings, whereas evolution does not. Granted, the theory of evolution might not be complete, but it, also, evolved and still evolves.

“1. Where do I come from? No explanation other than created by Allah. The Koran creation account speaks of the Earth on the back of a gallactic turtle.
2. Why do I exist? No real explanation other than to escape those who oppress the Muslims, Christians and Jewish.
3. What happens when I die? Allah decides who gets into Mulsim Utopia. The only assured way is to be a martyr or esentially commit suicide. Coincidentally, in Christianity suicide is a unforegivable sin – it is an assured way to get in to hell or the Hotel California (a song about living a material life then dying and going to hell).”

Wow, way to make a comparitive to Islam and not know anything about it. No further explanation? Maybe you should read up more about Abraham, buddy. Reason to exist? It’s called Tawhid, one of the most fundamental concepts in Islam. What happens when I die? They call it paradise, or a state closer to the will of Allah.

I can’t believe you find a few lines that contradict each other and claim that the religions are all that different. At the core, the values that each one holds, is identical. The story of Jesus and the Ressurection is a must believe in Christianty, and that is where they part, but the values held by each or scarily similar. If you came here to defend Christianity, just know that we were never attacking it.

Religius theories and Evolution theories. Yes BOTH of them is theories, becaus none of it is just more than jsut that, theories. We can’t say that God exist, and we cant say that he is existing. The same is to the evolution theories, we don’t have enough proof that neither of them exist. But the human mind needs something to belive in, and with that in mind, we humans create something to belive in, either if it is Religion or if it is Evolution.

Now, have anyone of you seen Zeitgeist? It takes up quite many interesting paralells between religius faiths, at least in part one. And no, I don’t take this up becaus I want to pick a fight. I do it becaus of davehead, MrMiami and Cannibals “dirt-flings” if I have the right to say so.

Watch it, becaus it gives a loot interesting things, the only thing is that the intro is 9 minutes and that it contains some not-so-good laughters in it. Watch part one ( 30 min after the intro ) and if you try to discuss it here, please use proper language and don’t kick on others beliefs.

When it comes down to religion in school run it as a theology class, history 101 of the worlds religions.

Broadening the view of kids and showing them how like most religions are is never a bad idea…altho bible thumpers(of any religion) will get their noses out of joint over it because they can not be on top….

Pastafarianism modern parody or not is a off shoot of Christianity like a dozen other variants that has odd or strange customs its not better/worse than them.. whats the old saying, whats the diffrance in a “religion” and a “cult”, numbers,popularity,ect,ect…

For the most part one could agree with it but my take is (in a zippyisim non the elss)
“The purpose of religion is to bring humans together to understand them selfs and their faith, when it divides people into petty labels and damns them for being “different” it is nothing more than a cult that lives off fear,greed and ignorance, for its far more easy to hate and fear than love, forgive and move on.”:ZippyDSmlee

Science answers the “how”, not the “why”. Evolution is a theory to explain how life, from it´s humble beginings, evolved to more and more complex forms and even sentient beings.

It does not answer “why” there are sentient beings, especially not why you and me are here. Nor it explains what our “purpose” is or what we can expect after our death.

If you are looking for answers to these questions, you´ll likely not find them through evidences, facts or observations. You´ll find them within yourself. And each has to find his own answers.

But confusing your personal answers to these questions with the hard reality of facts, evidences and observations is folly. It is simply not enough to show shortcomings and obscurities within scientific theories. A theory doesn´t have to be perfect, it just needs to be *better than any other theory*.

So we can´t disprove the existence of the jewish/christian/islamic god and therefore need to teach creationism in schools?
Than we have to teach the existence of the FSM as well, as no one can disprove It. We also have to teach the theory of “hey we´re all living in a gigantic computer simulation it´s true i swear” because no one can disprove it. Hell, no one can “disprove” that *I* created the universe within the last 5 minutes.
At some point its not about “can we disprove it” but rather about “how far does it get us?” Science has the advantage that people are actually welcome to argue about it. The scientific view of the world and the universe has changed, sometimes dramatically, through the last centuries. Instead of ignoring or repressing new evidence, it is evaluated and integrated.

And lastly, “God did it” doesn´t explain anything.

“God created humanity” is an explanation for our existence as “factories created cars” is for the existence of the automobile. It always begs the question “Well, where did God come from?”. And that question is left just as unanswered as the question “where does the universe come from” is by science.

“Why do I exist?” Because God wants it. “Why does he want my existence?” Uh… because he has got some divine plan we wouldn´t understand. Great. So I exist for some reason I won´t understand anyway, but hey, I´m glad there is a reason after all…

Where do I go when I die?” Apparently to some greast place, kinda makes you wonder why we have to put up with this existence here on earth anyway. And why do so few people ask “Where were I before I died?” I mean, that question is just as important, isn´t it?
If I came from nothing, it´s quite likely I´ll just go back to nothing. If I existed in some form, I apparently have no memories – which are essentially to define “me”. Even if I continue to exist in some form, without my memories, my personality, it won´t be “me”.